


Phoenix

by Isavuu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fire Powered!Reader, Happy Ending, Suicide (of HYDRA Agents), Temporary Character Death, Violence, fab1kchallenge, mutant!reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 03:19:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isavuu/pseuds/Isavuu
Summary: If you are flame, he is ash.With you, Bucky finds the fire that once burned inside of him.My entry forFabi’s1k Constellation Challenge!





	Phoenix

If you are flame, he is ash. A remnant of the fire that once burned inside of him. James Buchanan Barnes’ fire was quenched long before you were even born. Perhaps it was because he burned too bright and hot, and the universe couldn’t hold another star.

You are always burning. Literally. Your DNA is mutated, and if you will it, your hands become engulfed in a red, hot fire that can be spewed from your arms like a flamethrower. Bucky says that he can see the fire behind your eyes even when your hands are not aflame, and that is because of your passion. You don’t tell him, but you know that you always burn brighter with him around, and you know that you provoke a spark of something he thought he lost long ago within him. 

At the moment, you are burning and freezing. Natasha always requests your company when she has recon missions in the snow of Siberia, so you were already scheduled when she pulled out last minute. The only other person who knows this area as well as her was asked to take her place: Bucky. That is why you are burning. Your internal temperature may break thermometers, but his presence made you question if hell was inside of your belly. 

“What?” His voice is soft as he glances at you before returning his eyes to the scope of his sniper. He is laying on his stomach, surveying the area around the watchtower you are inside. The winter clothes he came in with are next to him, so you can watch the taut muscles of his arm and torso stretch the thermal bodysuit. He tucks a strand of his hair behind his ear that got in the way of his vision. 

You blink in confusion before making some sort of noise to acknowledge his question, “Hm?”

“You’re staring at me,” he says while his metal fingers delicately adjust the gun.

“There’s not much else to look at,” you sigh and rest your chin against your palm. You’re not lying. The only thing that can be seen for miles around is the blinding white of snow. 

“You’re not seeing what I am,” Bucky says, a hint of frustration in his voice as he breaks away from the scope and starts deconstructing the sniper, “Nat’s intel was right. There’s movement in the base. Damn.” 

He is always disappointed when there are HYDRA flair-ups. You think he truly believes that when one head is cut off, more appear to replace it, and the never-ending battle weighs on him. However, HYDRA sniffing around abandoned soviet-era bases won’t end well unless the Avengers intervene early-on. Hopefully you will be able to take a captive and get some more information before these weak agents crush a fake tooth full of cyanide. 

Bucky has a brooding quiet as he packs up his gun and puts his winter gear back on. He wanted so desperately for Natasha to be wrong. It makes your passionate fire swell, determination to right all the wrongs HYDRA did to him fuel the flame. You two exit the watchtower, forced to climb down a very high ladder as the snowy wind threatens to pull you off. If neither of you were mutated, this simple mission would be brutal. 

Once on the ground and starting to head towards the base, you shed your gloves and let little flames lick around your hands and warm the rest of your body. The wind is unforgiving, and it’s hard to walk on the snow. You start to slow and fall behind Bucky’s steps. He is too familiar with winter, his strides never wavering towards his goal until he glances back over his shoulder and stops in his tracks. He waits until you are back beside him and pulls off the mostly ornamental glove he put on his metal hand. The fabric is blown away by the wind as he grabs your burning hand. The flames you conjure melt the snowflakes that land on his metal. Bucky returns to his commanding pace with you in tow, and he doesn’t loosen his grip even a little for the three-mile trek. You don’t ever want him to let go. 

He must, though, once you reach the base and stealthily slip into the concrete fortress. It’s dated, but that makes it easier to navigate. It’s shaped like a plus sign, corridors in every cardinal direction. The first thing he does is go to the control room, located in the center of the base, that used to house radios stacked on radios meant to spy on America. HYDRA has wired the room so that it can continue its purpose of a communication center. It only takes a pinch of your fingers and inhuman heat to fizzle out the most important fuses and down all contact to the outside world. 

Footsteps echo from the hallway as you quench the final fuse and watch the lights of their equipment fade to black. Bucky grabs your arm and pushes you into a supply closet before the owners of the footsteps can enter the room. He leaves the door cracked to avoid suspicion as his body shields yours. With your back pressed against the wall and Bucky’s massive arms caging your sides, you grip his thick winter jacket and listen. You don’t speak Russian fluently, but Nat has been teaching you in her down time. It’s broken, yet you can pick up that they think their machinery fried by itself. Bucky’s tensed body relaxing confirms what you think you heard, and the footsteps scuttle away in a hurry to try and get communication back online. 

Your heartbeat is pounding, and you are unintentionally making the small closet an oven. Bucky pushes the door open and backs out, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead you know you caused to sweat. He never complains when you make every room you enter feel warmer.

“That was only three of them,” he says in a low, quiet tone, “there should be about nine more in the base.”

You nod and implicitly trust his HYDRA knowledge. “Want me to do Smoke Them Out?” you ask, a nifty trick that Thor named where you light stuff on fire and cause a general panic until the enemies are herded like sheep so that your teammates can easily pick them off. 

You catch a hint of a smirk as he nods and checks on his two handguns to ensure their clips are loaded. “I’ll be in the South wing, draw them there. Be safe.”

‘Be safe’ is the closest thing to showing that Bucky cares about someone, and it makes your palms and cheeks burn while he tosses his winter gear into the closet to retrieve later so he is unburdened. You do the same, then grab as many flammable items you can from the room, specifically ones that will create a thick, black smoke. Once all of Bucky’s guns are checked, his mask is pulled over his face, and he’s out the door. His footsteps are silent compared to the careless stomping of the HYDRA agents. 

You put all of the flammables into a small trashcan next to the door and easily set it ablaze. The smoke is thick enough to rise and waft through the cracks of the hallway entrance. Presumably the HYDRA agents should be on their way back to try and fix their communication links and the smoke will get their attention. Everyone always tries to investigate before they see your relentless fire and run the opposite direction. This is the most dangerous part for you. 

Bucky is fast, he is probably already at his promised post, so you will the fire from your palms and fill the hallway with flame at the first sound of footsteps. Thankfully, the agents don’t see you, they are too distracted by the threat of burning alive. You can hear them screaming in Russian and running the opposite way. You just pray it was all of them. 

Stopping the fire from your hands, it lingers and licks the concrete walls of the base’s hall, like hungry tongues looking for something to completely devour. You wrinkle your nose at the smell of burnt flesh, they must have been closer than you thought. The sound of Bucky’s gunshots ricochet until it reaches you, and you take off in a sprint to the South corridor. 

As you arrive into the room Bucky made a barricade in, you see him choking out an agent with his metal arm, and his free hand stuck down his mouth. The agent is gagging as Bucky tries to find and extract the poisonous tooth to make him into an informant. The man in his hold bites down hard on Bucky’s fingers and subsequently the cyanide. With a growl, Bucky pushes the man now foaming at the mouth to the ground and stands, shaking his hand as though he can just shake the pain away. 

You wince as you watch the agent take his last breath then take a quick sweep of the room to distract yourself. “Buck,” you say to get his attention as he picks up his guns, “There are only seven bodies.”

“I know,” he says curtly after pulling his mask off and throwing it aside. You fall silent as he continues, “I think the other five went to the West corridor.”

He’s angry that this hasn’t gone to plan, that HYDRA is getting the best of him once again, and you’re worried. He’s not in a good mindset, but you let him push past you to silently trek through the hallway to the next section of the base. He keeps his guns cocked and his fingers on the triggers as you follow quietly behind him. 

Flames curl around your fingers as you prepare for a fight. Before you even reach the West end, you hear a scuffle behind the closed door. Bucky curses under his breath and quickly throws the door open, pointing his gun around the room but ultimately lowering it. The noises were three agents dying a painful death from cyanide poisoning, writhing on the floor and foaming as so many of their comrades have in the past. 

You wince and turn your head as Bucky shoots one of them in the head that was still moving to end his suffering. There is no expression on your partner’s face, and it’s frightening when he speaks in a monotone voice, “Two left.” 

There is no room for a response as he reloads his gun to make up for the wasted bullet and re-enters the hallway. You must follow, your heart aching for Bucky’s lost fire that becomes so obvious during missions. It was replaced with an uncomfortable mixture of anger, guilt, and indifference. Although you bring something out in him, you don’t know if it’s possible to rekindle a flame that was stomped out so violently.

The hallway is scorched as you approach the control room once again. There are two other wings of the base that have not been checked, so you suggest, “Let’s split up, I’ll take North.”

He just nods and heads East, stepping over the burnt remnants of soviet-era electronics, until you can’t see him anymore. With a sigh, you slowly head towards your assigned section, fully expecting Bucky to be the one to find and fail to save the remaining agents. Before you completely enter the final corridor, you kneel and send a burst of flames under the crack of the door, then press your ear to the metal to try and hear any movement. There is nothing but silence, so you stand back up, pushing the door open cautiously. All of the lights are off in the North with no sign that anyone was here. You relax until you hear footsteps behind you. The first thought is that Bucky is returning to you, but when you realize how silently he has been gliding through these halls, your normally hot blood runs cold. 

You don’t turn around to acknowledge the HYDRA agents at first, instead you let your mutant flames start to cover your arms, bringing a heat to kill the agents before they have the chance to fire their guns. Spinning around with your arms outstretched in front of you, you send pillars of fire towards them. Their screams pierce the silence that the hall was once bathed in, but instead of trying to run or immediately trying to shield themselves, they unload every single bullet that was in their guns. 

Only once their burnt bodies hit the floor, twitching as though they had taken their cyanide, but in much more agonizing pain, do you stop your power and drop your arms back to your sides. Bucky comes rushing at the sound, stopping in his tracks when he sees you standing at the end of the hallway and lowering his guns. You watch his eyes glance from the charcoal bodies on the ground to the spray of bullet holes on the walls. 

He’s looking at your stomach, and his face twists into an expression you’ve never seen from him as he breathes an almost silent, “No…”

You look down at yourself, confused until you see that the bullets not only buried themselves into the cement walls, but also into your body. The pain hits you as suddenly as the shock wears off. While you start to fall to the ground, Bucky jumps over the bodies to catch you before you completely hit the floor. He looks wildly at all the entry wounds, his human hand pressing down to stop the worst of the bleeding, but it’s no use, there are so many sources of blood. 

An overwhelming heat overtakes you, hotter than anything you’ve ever experienced, and you can’t help but scream. You also can’t help the flames from coming again. Bucky jerks his human hand away from your body because even through the blood your skin starts to burn him. He lays you down on the cool cement floor with his metal arm. Every inhale is agony from the damage to your ribs. Your lava blood is filling your lungs, spilling from your lips, and pooling on the cement. 

Bucky can’t take his eyes or his body away from you even though the heat you are producing is unreal; you are making this snowy base feel like a desert with your pain. He tries to cup your face with his metal hand until you scream again, and flames leave your lips along with blood. Pushing himself away from you, he swears he can see the fire completely overtake your eyes as your body begins to convulse. 

“G-Go,” you choke out as best as you can, you can feel the fire spread across your body to parts you’ve never felt it before, “I-I don’t… I-I don’t know what’s happening.”

As soon as the last word is uttered from your blood-stained lips, your body produces a burst of flames. Bucky covers his head with his metal arm until it rolls over him and down the hallway, and he looks back at your dying body. “I can’t leave you,” his voice breaks as he speaks. 

“ _Go_!” you scream as your body is completely engulfed in flames, and you know you can’t control the heat anymore. You are a dying star, collapsing in on itself until it explodes into nothing. As if the pools of blood are gasoline, flames spread out from your body, licking at Bucky’s boots until he pushes himself back even further, but the fire is too fast, and he can’t see your eyes anymore, he can only hear your screaming. 

Bucky stands to his feet and sprints to the exit, the fire literally hot on his heels. With one last look over his shoulder, he watches you reach out to him before the fire and the waves of heat obscure his vision. He climbs out of the base and is met with the welcome cold, and just as he has both feet in the snow, the base trembles. He can hear your piercing scream one last time until the entire building explodes, the force throwing him into the snow. Covering his head is the only protection he gives himself from the debris falling down on him like the snowflakes. 

After laying in the snow for what feels like forever, he finally uncovers his head and rolls over onto his back. His breathing is ragged as he stares up at the endless white sky. Large flakes of snow rest delicately on his hair and melt on his skin. He has never felt more alone. This was supposed to be an easy mission. He fucked it up, and you are the one that had to pay the price for the negligence of his blind rage. All he can think about is the fire in your eyes that he loved. 

How is he supposed to explain what happened to the others? An overwhelming wave of guilt and sadness washes over him, so strong that he clutches his chest with his human hand. He hasn’t felt such intense emotions in a long time. They’re bubbling up inside of him so quickly he lets out a small whimper, the sound dampened by the snow. It’s been decades since he’s cried, and the tears roll down his cheeks, freezing as they hit the snow. He had no idea that he felt so strongly about you, but your supernova has awoken something in him. 

After a while longer of lying in the snow, Bucky slowly gets up and surveys the wreck in front of him. There is nothing left here anymore: HYDRA won’t come back, and there is nothing keeping him here but his sadness. With a heavy sigh, he turns and starts the long, cold trek back to the watchtower extraction point. 

“B-Bucky?”

He stops in his tracks because this has to be his mind playing tricks on him. The Wakandans must have missed something during his deprogramming. He sucks in a cold breath of air before turning around to the wreckage, preparing himself to be disappointed by yet another ghost to haunt him. 

You watch him turn devastatingly slow as you stumble forward, your arms covering your bare body as your clothes were burned off in your fire. It took the very last of your energy to unearth yourself from the rubble, and the snow is unrelenting. While Bucky stares at you with wide, watery eyes, you fall to your knees. He sprints to you, sliding onto his knees as well as he gathers you in his arms. His embrace is tight, pressing you to his chest and his head on your shoulder. You can feel him shaking around you and his cold tears running down your back. 

“What happened?” you ask in a scratchy voice.

He parts from you only to press his palm against your ribs, the numerous bullet holes gone, as if they were never there in the first place. “You were hurt…”

“All I remember is the heat,” you say, but the heat has gone from you now, and you are very aware of how naked you are in the Russian winter snow. Bucky notices as well, and hastily peels off the top of his thermal bodysuit and helps you into it. You glance back over your shoulder at the still smoking base and ask, “Did I do that?”

Bucky nods as his hands move up to cradle your face. He wipes a smudge of soot from your cheek, and his eyes scan your face for any wounds. There is something like a sigh of relief that escapes his lips when his eyes finally hold your gaze, “You turned to fire. I thought… I thought I lost you.”

“Guess I am more than the fire within me,” you say with a smile, trying to soothe the man whose cheeks are wet from tears, “like the Phoenix.”

He breaks out into a small smile and pulls you back into his arms, “I will make sure you never have to go through that again.” 

Although your cheek is pressed to his chest, you tilt your head up to look at him. There’s something different now, like the spark that existed between you two has caught flame and is spreading like wildfire through his veins. He presses a kiss to the top of your head before he stands with you. 

“Let’s get you to the watchtower to rest, the extraction team will be here in a few hours,” he says softly as he lifts you up as though you weigh nothing. You are too exhausted to complain, so you just secure your arms around his neck and let him shoulder the burden of walking for miles in the snow. While he walks, you look deeply into his eyes. There’s a determination there that used to be fueled by nothing but empty anger, but now the fire has returned to him, burning as brightly as you think it did when he was in another century. 

Your body overcame death by purifying itself with fire. The power inside of you is bigger than anyone ever knew. So powerful that although you were reborn from the flames, you created another phoenix within Bucky. Even as he trudges along the Russian mountainside, you can see the fire burning within him too now. Out of the ashes, rises something new.

**Author's Note:**

> My emergence from a three-month-long writer’s block! I’m back with a weird open-ended fic babey!  
> My contribution to [Fabi’s](https://archiveofourown.org/users/siruru) 1k Constellation Challenge for _Phoenix_ , sorry it took so long!  
> She also made the fantastic moodboard!  
> If you want to earn a free request be a frequent commenter on my fics!


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